The tragedy took place on the night of Saturday to Sunday in Ambleteuse. The year 2024 is already the deadliest since makeshift boats began crossing the stretch of sea towards England.
“Several migrants have lost their lives” on the night of Saturday to Sunday in Ambleteuse (Pas-de-Calais) while attempting to cross the Channel clandestinely to England, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture announced on Sunday.
The sinking of this overloaded clandestine boat that had just left the French coast for England left 8 dead, near Ambleteuse (Pas-de-Calais), indicated a police source. The boat capsized early in the night, while it was still in the immediate vicinity of land, specified a source within the rescue services.
The prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, went to the scene and was due to speak to the press at 10:00 a.m. on the Ambleteuse sea wall, to make “the point on the situation”.
The tragedy came less than two weeks after the worst shipwreck of the year, which left twelve dead on September 3. It brings to 45 the number of deaths in such clandestine crossings since January, confirming that 2024 is by far the deadliest year since the start of the phenomenon of makeshift boats crossing the Channel in 2018.
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On Saturday, the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea indicated that it had rescued a total of 200 shipwrecked people in Pas-de-Calais, during four separate rescues by customs patrol boats or gendarmerie patrol boats.
Over the whole day, “18 attempts at boat departures were monitored” by the Regional Operational Centre for Surveillance and Rescue at Cap Gris-Nez, added Prémar.
In Ambleteuse, after the shipwreck during the night, a second departure took place around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, reported Christine Leclair, a volunteer in a local association. The departures, “it’s all the time, winter, day, night, summer, as soon as the sea is calm”she stressed.
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